1. Technical Field
The inventive arrangements relate generally to video recording systems and more particularly to video recording systems that record digitally encoded video sequences onto storage media such as recordable digital video discs, hard drives, magneto optical discs and digital tape.
2. Description of Related Art
Many consumers have recording devices which they use to record their favorite programs. In recent years, however, consumers have been inundated with programming choices. For example, some satellite transmission systems can contain over 500 channels with programming content. As a result, a single recording device severely restricts the consumer's options if the consumer wishes to record several programs.
As a solution, a consumer can purchase more than one recording device and can program each of these devices to record a separate program. Alternatively, several encoders and decoders can be placed in a recording device to accommodate multiple video signals. Notably, however, both of these options increase costs significantly. Moreover, a recorder that employs multiple encoders and decoders may produce a bit rate that exceeds the recorders maximum recording rate and can increase the complexity of the design of the recorder. Although one or more optical drive units can be added to solve the bit rate problem, the issues of added cost and design complexity renders this solution inadequate as well. Thus, what is needed is a recording device capable of recording and playing back multiple video signals without significantly increasing the cost or complexity of the recording device.